Toronto

Toronto is the Canadian city where the majority of the novel is set. The narrator resides here with her boyfriend Miles in "a pretty apartment on the second floor of a very old house" (55). Although the narrator appreciates her home, she often has trouble engaging with her surroundings. At times, she feels that her urban environment precludes her ability to think clearly. For example, when she is on her way home from "giving a reading in a church, in a village on a lake," she reflects upon the differences between country and city life (141). She decides that because "everything is of equal significance" in the city, it is "pretty much impossible" to locate a true perspective on anything while there (153). In other passages, she tries to focus on what her life in Toronto does give her. She not only has a home life with Miles, but lives in...